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Sales for PC Gaming Hardware Estimated to Hit US$23 Billion in 2012

The researchers at Jon Peddie Research (JPR) have estimated PC gaming hardware global sales to hit US$23 billion for 2012. This is despite of challenges to this genre of gaming from mobile gaming as well as console gaming. The folks at JPR have painted a rosy picture for PC gaming and have estimated, in three years' time in 2015, the market will be responsible for US$32 billion in sales. That is a nearly 40 percent increment from current estimates.

Strong demand from BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries; where desktop systems, accessories and upgrade components are expected to near US$4.7 billion for 2012, will spur global sales. The demand from these countries is expected to grow by almost 64 percent to US$7.7 billion by 2015. With new processors from AMD and Intel, coupled with new graphical processors from the AMD Radeon HD 7000 series and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 600 series, such new hardware products are expected to add impetus to the demand from BRIC countries.

The hardware components are expected to release new upgrade components based on these new offerings from the chip manufacturers to cater to this demand. Due to stiff competition amongst these components manufacturers, JPR speculates that average selling prices for some components could suffer as competition heats up in 2013, but unit shipments will continue to rise and may offset the decreases in prices.

Besides hardware components, PC gamers can look forward to a plethora of titles this year and into 2013, including but not limited to Diablo III, Max Payne 3, Crysis 3, Far Cry 3, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria and Borderlands 2.

In its 33-country analysis of the gamer market, JPR discovered that Internet cafes in China are driving demand for mainstream and some performance class gaming equipment. With the growing affluence of mainland Chinese consumers, demand for gaming and enthusiast systems are also picking up. Interest in PC gaming is increasing in Russia, while in India and Brazil, its growth is still in the nascent stages.